


More Myself Than I Am

by Becca O (trekybecky), cruisedirector



Category: Star Trek: Voyager, Wuthering Heights
Genre: Ethical Dilemmas, F/M, Holodecks/Holosuites, Identity Issues, Kissing, Literary Reference, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-12-21
Updated: 1996-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trekybecky/pseuds/Becca%20O, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janeway is running a holonovel of "Wuthering Heights" and makes some interesting changes in the characterization of Heathcliff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Myself Than I Am

**Author's Note:**

> This story got written because Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" was on the radio right after we first saw Janeway's godawful Victorian holonovel, which made us suspect that if we were Janeway, we could come up with someone a lot better to fool around with than Lord Muttonchops. If Janeway's name hadn't been Kathryn and _Wuthering Heights_' heroine's name hadn't also been Catherine, none of this would have happened. Paramount owns half the characters and Emily Bronte owns the other half; we don't know who'd be more embarrassed about this unholy union. Many thanks to Jacqueline Lichtenberg for editing suggestions.

Ship's functions had been going smoothly--too smoothly, Kathryn Janeway thought grimly. That was usually when something began to go wrong. As she rested her chin in her hands, gazing out the viewport, a vague memory of an ancient law by a Terran named Murphy came to mind.

Over the past several weeks, the morale of the crew had seemed to rise. Janeway had heard that the gym was getting more use, people were using replicator rations to produce musical instruments and informal clothing. Rumors had even surfaced about parties in the observation lounge. Although she was pleased with the developments, the captain felt distanced from them. It wasn't likely anyone would be asking her to any Starfleet-Maquis mixers anytime soon. As she studied the vast array of stars, she reflected that despite the warp six speed that Voyager maintained, the ship was going nowhere fast; home was decades away, the view was always unfamiliar.

Janeway shook her head and forced herself to think positive thoughts. The crew was taking advantage of the calm time to run diagnostics on the ship's systems, hoping to find a way to charge the replicators continuously. Torres, Kim, and Carey had attempted to reconfigure the power supply from the holodeck, but their first attempts shorted out the particle emitter and knocked the hologenerator offline. Tom Paris was still muttering about what he would do if any of his programs had been damaged. Yet Torres seemed sure there must be a way to make it work, and Chakotay had given her permission to keep at it; in his experience, if B'Elanna said something could be done, it usually could. He was even spending some of his off time tinkering with the generator.

Janeway found it odd that her second in command should be so interested in an engineering problem, but thought that Chakotay also seemed restless--distanced by rank and role from his former crewmates, yet not close with any of the Starfleet officers. They were both very isolated, even from one another. After what seemed like hours of stargazing, she sighed, rose, and changed into Starfleet gym clothes. Her last resort for the evening was to escape into one of her holonovels.

"Hello," she called out as she entered the holodeck, looking around for Torres or one of the other engineers, but no one responded. "Computer, run program..." In the middle of the sentence, a muffled curse on the far side of the room made her pause. "Who's there?" she demanded again.

Struggling to his feet, Chakotay answered, "Only me, Captain. I was working on a solution for our replicator problems, but I'm not having much luck." Suddenly he seemed to notice the way she was dressed. "I'm sorry, were you planning on using the holodeck? I had to take the generator offline, but if you want..."

"No, no, Commander. What you're doing is more important. Maybe I'll go shoot some pool instead." They both grinned as they remembered how she had hustled Paris on her first visit to his holobistro. Cocky little jerk, Janeway thought, he had deserved it.

"Just out of curiosity, what sort of program does a starship captain use for escape?" Chakotay chuckled aloud. She gave an embarrassed sigh and he looked chagrined. "It's really none of my business, I apologize if I..."

"Not at all, it's quite silly. Just a series of holonovels that I got before we left. Mysteries and romances, nothing profound." Her heightened color didn't escape Chakotay, who gazed speculatively at her for a moment and then grinned.

"Well, I've done all I can for now, Captain. If you'll give me a few minutes, I can have this up and running for you."

"No, that's all right. Another time." It was a little unsettling to have one's first officer discover that one was a closet romantic. Cavit had never asked her what she did to relax, and she had never told him. But her chance association with the man currently serving under her, the idealistic renegade whom she had been dispatched to arrest, almost seemed like a plot out of a holonovel, and from the conventions of human literature, she could guess where a sentimental writer would have taken their own story...

Janeway realized that she was still staring, flushed, at Chakotay, and turned quickly away. "Good night, Commander," she said formally, feeling his eyes on her back. She returned to her quarters to settle in for a restless night.

* * * *

Both senior officers exited cheerfully when the next day's slow bridge shift ended. As they stepped into the turbolift, Chakotay leaned over with a smirk and murmured, "The holodeck is up and running again, Captain." She rolled her eyes, but recovered long enough to say "Thank you, Commander," making a mental note to cast him as the villain in her next program: it would serve him right. She hurried to her quarters, changed her clothes, then paused on her way out the door. "Computer, locate Commander Chakotay."

*Commander Chakotay is in his quarters,* came the reply. Good, she thought, smiling to herself as she walked to the holodeck. She had decided on something classic; somehow that seemed more dignified than sleuthing or riding horses. Arriving at the closed door, she tapped the computer access panel and said, "Computer, activate program Janeway, '_Wuthering Heights_'." After a brief pause the computer informed her that the program was loaded, and she entered.

Janeway stood in a doorway staring out as fog swirled out of the darkness, rolling over the windswept hills. She could hear birds cawing ominously while from a distance came the sound of approaching footsteps. As they moved nearer, she tried to pinpoint their location, but the night was masking their direction. A tall, pale man suddenly stepped out of the mists and spoke with intensity."Catherine..."

"Computer, freeze program." The slender figure remained motionless, trapped in mid-sentence. "This isn't right. Computer, delete image." She paced back into the ornate room, pulling at the long skirts she wore as she considered changing the program. Remembering her earlier threat, she smiled devilishly. "Computer, replace image with that of Commander Chakotay, same clothing. Resume program from time frame two-oh-two-two."

*Working*, the computer paused.

...a tall, dark man suddenly stepped out of the mists and spoke with intensity. "Kathryn..."

She had to stop the program again just to inspect her first officer's form in the period costume, the white shirt punctuating his golden skin, his hair gleaming darker than the heavy outer clothes he wore. Of course he was too old to be Heathcliff, but she was too old to be Catherine--she didn't even want to think about by how many years. "Computer, delete the tattoo." Intruguing as the mark on his forehead was, it was also completely anachronistic; she would never think of him as Heathcliff if she allowed it to remain. With the new clothes and forehead, the man before her looked just different enough to be believable within the story--and still very attractive. "Resume program," she ordered, resisting the red alerts that went off in her mind.

* * * *

On another deck, Chakotay tossed down the padd he had been reading in annoyance. "Computer, locate Captain Janeway," he demanded plaintively.

*Captain Janeway is in the holodeck.*

Grinning, the commander glanced back down the padd, then strode out of his quarters. Outside the holodeck, Chakotay paused. She might be furious if he barged in. Well, nothing ventured... "Computer, access holodeck."

*Access denied, security protocol in effect.* "Computer, command-level override Chakotay Omega One." *Override denied. Audio contact only.* "Computer, what program is currently being used?" Surely that wasn't confidential. *Program in use is Janeway, '_Wuthering Heights_.'* Filing this information away, he turned and walked off toward the observation lounge.

The computer library contained a copy of an ancient earth novel called _Wuthering Heights_, but Chakotay could barely stay awake through the first five pages; the pompous descriptions and anachronistic language bored him. He wasn't going to be able to tease Janeway about it if he couldn't get through the florid tome. It took a couple of hours of scrutiny and a few questions to Torres and Carey, but Chakotay finally was able to gain access to the locked program through a little-known engineering interrupt sequence. "Computer, activate program Janeway, '_Wuthering Heights_', override two four seven one."

*Program initiated, enter when ready,* the computer reported smoothly, and the first officer strode onto the holodeck. By the time he left, his life seemed as unreal as the program.

* * * *

"...Commander Chakotay..."

He jumped as the sound of his captain's voice brought him abruptly back to the morning briefing. Sitting up straight and clearing his throat, he stammered an apology. "Excuse me, Captain, I was, uh..." Chakotay tried very hard to erase the image of Kathryn Janeway which had been replaying in his mind--in a long formal dress, hair falling about her shoulders as she turned to him across a roomful of stuffy people and smiled...

"Is anything wrong, Commander?" the captain asked with genuine concern.

"No. That is, I guess my mind was elsewhere." Inwardly he cursed; this preoccupation with _Wuthering Heights_ was going to destroy his effectiveness on duty if he couldn't even pay attention at the staff meetings. All morning, Chakotay had found himself envisioning scenes from the holodeck, only to realize he had missed entire conversations. Ironic, he thought glumly, that he was letting _her_ diversion disrupt _his_ work.

"I think you've been spending too much time on our replicator problems," Janeway was saying. "You need a break. Maybe a visit to the holodeck would help you relax."

Chakotay nearly strangled. The previous evening, he had been astounded when faced with his own image on the holodeck. He recovered long enough to ask the programmable version of himself some rather pointed questions about _Wuthering Heights_, but his holoimage, which spoke in the same hyperbolic dialect as the novel, wasn't much help. He really needed to see the program from Janeway's perspective; of late, he had begun to detect a rather wicked sense of humor in the captain that wasn't always apparent to the rest of the crew. What could have driven her to script him into an escapist bit of fantasy?

After some further tinkering with the codes, he was able to access the entire program. Deciding that turnabout was fair play, he programmed Janeway's image into the female lead and let the story run its course. At first he was bored; the characters spoke ponderously of family and duty, the servants never went away, a sense of looming fate pervaded the atmosphere. Kathryn--or Catherine, as she had been called in the text in the library--was admittedly an attractive woman, although she seemed more petulant and self-centered than Chakotay ever would have associated with the sensitive leader he answered to on duty. But the brooding, intense man wearing his own face--minus the tattoo--spoke little, giving only occasional violent hints of the singleminded passion which lay beneath the glower. Chakotay was relieved when the Heathcliff character vanished from the story for a lengthy stretch. He had been ready to turn the program off when Cathy, miserable and ailing, began to speak of Heathcliff incessantly, and then Heathcliff returned and the characters began to argue. The fight transformed them both. Words were spoken, confessions were made; Chakotay felt abruptly as though he were intruding on a deeply personal moment, but he could not tear himself away from the eerily beautiful woman with Janeway's face and the melancholy stranger wearing his own.

So he stood by as the lovers came together, ignoring their families and the intruding servants...he observed as they met in a fiery embrace and sank passionately onto the heroine's bed, unaware of their surroundings or their witnesses...he broke out into a sweat as he watched them devouring one another with their eyes, their hands, their mouths...

"Computer...end program," Chakotay barked. He was shaking from the feelings the scenario had triggered in him: arousal was certainly one of them, and anger, not to mention embarrassment, confusion, and a strange brand of flattery. But what could he say to the captain--"I know you've been making love with my holoimage"? There was no way to approach the subject without destroying their working relationship.

So he went about his business, poorly, and continued to mull. A casual remark by B'Elanna over dinner gave him a solution. She was still trying to get back at Paris for the jerk who had accosted her Chez Sandrine, and happened to mention sneaking herself into the program unbeknownst to Tom in order to teach him a lesson. That was all Chakotay needed to hear. He grilled her as to how it could be accomplished, all the while smiling conspiratorially as if he simply enjoyed her scheming.

An evening later he stood in the holodeck, hands clammy with nervousness at what he was about to do although he told himself it was a big prank. "Computer, run Chakotay, '_Wuthering Heights_' overwrite one." Nothing appeared to change, but he knew that to anyone entering the holodeck he should be invisible. If it worked. Unfortunately he had no way to test the codes. He hoped Janeway would arrive quickly: then, if it didn't work, which would probably be better all around, she would see him standing there wearing Heathcliff's clothes and it would be up to her to explain herself to him.

But if it did work, and she picked up the program where she had left it, he would have to decide at what point to reveal the charade. He swallowed as he wondered what he was going to do if she elected to rejoin the program at some point later in the novel, for which he would have much less of a frame of reference. Or she might choose to run another program altogether, in which case he would be stuck unless he ordered the computer to terminate his own program, which might reveal that he was hiding on the holodeck...

...the door swished open and Kathryn Janeway strode through it, wearing Catherine Earnshaw's elegant dress. She looked around quickly and then snapped, "Computer, run program Janeway, '_Wuthering Heights_,' time frame eight six three." The inside of the dark house surrounded Chakotay, and a moment later the heroine's wide eyes fell on himself. "Kathryn," he stammered--that was almost safe under any circumstances--"Are you busy this afternoon?"

"You run the risk of being scolded for no good," she snarled, and for a dizzying moment he was uncertain which Catherine was addressing him. But then she added, "You should be in the field now, Heathcliff," and he knew that the ploy had been successful: she thought he was his holoimage.

Chakotay knew enough about holonovels to know that the characters could adapt to variations offered by the people running the programs, although their limited programming made it difficult to stray too far from the constraints of the text on which they were based. He was relieved that Janeway did not always speak in the archaic terms of the novel, but worried nevertheless that his own response time lagged behind those of the other characters. There was an ever-present servant named Ellen whom he desperately wanted to delete; she never left him alone with Catherine.

Janeway had picked up the story at a point slightly before Heathcliff's first grand departure, and his primary interaction with her was a somewhat absurd argument. Cathy declared her intention to marry Edgar Linton, a milksop whom his character despised--at which point Chakotay knew he was supposed to make his enraged exit--but he hovered hidden to hear what Kathryn would say about Heathcliff. She admitted that she did not love Edgar, only his status, then launched into a speech about how painfully unhappy she would be without Heathcliff. "He shall never know how I love him," she cried mournfully. "He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

Chakotay withdrew uneasily to hide in the invisibility the program cast around him as the story proceeded without Heathcliff, wondering if he had underestimated Janeway's degree of involvement in the entire production. He did not understand why it should give her pleasure to play a character who suffered as much as Cathy did. Janeway deleted a lengthy scene between the omnipresent Ellen and a woman whom Chakotay knew Heathcliff was supposed to marry to spite Catherine, then jumped ahead to fifteen one three oh--the impassioned confrontation between himself and the heroine. Her unhappiness and his own discomfort made it easy for him to pretend to be Heathcliff, who was being torn apart by his despair at Catherine's impending demise.

Despite a lurking sense of anticipation, he dreaded reaching the moment when the characters finally came together. Janeway would be close enough to him to see the makeup with which he had covered the tattoo if she looked carefully. He had felt guilty about hiding the ritual markings of his tribe for a purpose such as this, but had put that consideration aside--along with his common sense, he told himelf, wondering with twisted humor what he would do if she didn't like the way he kissed her and ordered the computer to change it. He had to stop the pretense before they reached that juncture.

Yet when they arrived at the scene, Janeway played it very differently than had the programmed image of herself: instead of weeping and shrieking her way through a lengthy speech, her voice was calmly authoritative as she reached out one hand for him. "Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff."

He took her fingers in his, searching her face as she drew him without force toward her. The words he had intended to use to unmask himself would not come. Allowing himself a long glance at her hair, the expanse of skin down her neck and across her chest, the bodice confining her waist, he returned his gaze to hers. For the past day he had avoided looking directly at her; he had told himself that she might read the mischief in his own expression and demand to know what he was up to. Now as her intense blue eyes bored into him, he could not quash another emotion which lurked under the remorse he felt.

Her head tilted back, her arms fallen to her sides in a pose of abject surrender, Kathryn waited for Heathcliff to possess her. Anger, guilt, nervousness fell away. Chakotay felt completely in character as he seized her, whispering her name, thanking his ancestors that it would invariably be the right one. He knew that no English literary heroine was in his thoughts as he pressed his mouth to hers.

The kiss was delicious, unrestrained, making him hunger for more. It came as a disappointment as well as a relief when Janeway tore herself away, drew herself upright, and abruptly ended the program.

Through the next day's shift, Chakotay moved through his duties in a blur, anticipating and dreading the inevitable return he would make to the holodeck and Wuthering Heights. He kept telling himself that he would stay away--let Janeway run the program without him until she tired of it--but the idea of her in there with his image made him unreasonably jealous, and he knew he would never be able to work, knowing where she was and with whom. He was grateful that the Captain spent most of her day in the ready room working on the power consumption curve; sitting next to her all afternoon would have been more than he could stand.

Chakotay had to skip dinner to make certain that he arrived on the holodeck first that evening, dressing in a rush: once the clothes were on he fiddled with all the buttons, feeling certain that he had forgotten something but unable to figure out what. He considered letting Janeway figure out the game for herself, but worried seriously about embarrassing her; better to find an appropriate moment, then break it to her as if he found it all very amusing.

* * * *

For her part, Janeway had promised herself for days that she would delete the program at the earliest opportunity, only to find once she entered the holodeck that she could not speak the words. If Chakotay discovered what she'd done, there would be hell to pay, a senior officer abusing the privacy of a crewmember under her command. What had started out as a safe little joke had reached the point where it actually could compromise her authority.

Worse, she was finding it harder and harder to remember that Cathy was supposed to be weak and dying during the last minutes of the scenario. The evening before, she had been close to departing from the novel as her first officer's image kissed her. She had no idea what would happen next: she suspected it had never occurred to Victorian novelist Bronte that Catherine might not always fall into a swoon like a proper lady, and that Chakotay--Heathcliff--might have ignored the protocol which had gotten him nowhere in life. As she approached her destination, the captain of the Voyager chided herself for sinking to a new low--she'd taken pleasure from holocharacters before, but never with the image of a real person. Yet she suspected that it might be very fulfilling to bring Cathy and Heathcliff together in that joy which they never shared at Wuthering Heights...

"Who are you kidding?" she demanded aloud as she entered the holodeck, smiling wryly as she added, "Wrong Catherine, Kathryn. And wrong man."

She started _Wuthering Heights_ over from the beginning, stopping to make minor changes in the dialogue. She promised herself that this was the last time. Afterwards, she would delete Chakotay's image, then the entire program, so that it wouldn't tempt her back. Finally she reached the point she had awaited with both eagerness and nervousness: the emotional confrontation with Heathcliff, when Catherine threw caution to the winds.

"I wish I could hold you," she said bitterly, "till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. Why shouldn't you suffer?" He gripped her arm but she skipped over his interruptions: "Let me alone! If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough!" Janeway was astonished at herself; she was truly angry at the character who stood before her, who had left her--Catherine--desolate.

Heathcliff looked puzzled for a moment as the program worked to catch up with her changes. He had seemed slightly altered over the course of the evening, the program must have been responding to the variations she had inserted after she had replaced the original image of Heathcliff with Chakotay. He was touching her more forcefully, he swaggered more...but there was something else. This was definitely her first officer's form, his hair threaded with silver, his nose slightly asymmetrical...and on his forehead, arching over his left eyebrow...

...she froze as the truth gripped her, plain as the tattoo on his face. The man in front of her wasn't Heathcliff with Chakotay's features, _he was Chakotay_...

He caught her as she went rigid with shock. "Why did you betray your own heart, Kathryn?" he demanded, reciting from the novel.

Dear God. He had somehow found her out. "Computer, end program!" Janeway's voice speared across the room. Chakotay's hands flew out from under her elbows and she stumbled as she hit the floor; she was alone on the holodeck. She groped in front of her, feeling for solid flesh hidden by the projectors, yet touched nothing. After a moment she sank down and clasped her face between her palms, knowing that he must be watching, cursing him, cursing herself.

Unbelievable, what he had accomplished, finding a way to override her own changes to sneak himself in: a major programming feat, probably the sort of breakthrough they needed to reroute the holodeck power supply. But why? A private joke, that was what her own stunt was supposed to be. It was possible that he regarded the whole program that way, looking for the appropriate moment for them to have a good laugh together about it. Except that the situation had gone beyond a prank for her, and, she suspected, for him too, otherwise he would have stopped her by now. And now he could hold this entire situation over her head--of course Chakotay wouldn't do that to her, at least not viciously--was she confusing him with Heathcliff? How would she have felt, after all, if she had discovered _her_ image in one of _his_ programs? What sort of mindless physical encounter was he hoping to get out of this?

Calmer and angrier, Janeway rose, considering her options. She could demand that Chakotay show himself. But that would be humiliating for both of them, destructive to their professional relationship. She could delete the program and pretend that none of this had happened, but neither of them was likely to work with the other very effectively under those circumstances. She could go on with it as if she didn't know, but she didn't want him to believe that he could trick her--nor did she want anyone else to get wise to the situation. A touch of humor twisted her thoughts. If his plan had been to humiliate her, she could throw him for a loop. And if his scheme was to have some fun with no one the wiser, well...

"Computer, resume '_Wuthering Heights_,' time frame fifteen-one-three-two," she requested in a steady voice. The dark house on the moors appeared around her. A moment later, so did _he_, moving through her doorway with liquid speed.

"Cathy." Other than the tattoo, his face registered nothing out of the ordinary; anger, fretfulness, passion, all the angst she associated with the character. She wondered whether he'd actually read Bronte's novel as part of his research into the part. Shifting quickly as he moved towards her, she struck a dramatic Catherine pose, back half-turned to him.

"I lied to you, Heathcliff. I've lied to you all. I'm not ill, and I want to leave here with you, now."

She watched him struggle to look blank, like a holodeck image being reprogrammed, and impulsively threw herself into his arms. He tried to recoil, then stopped as he remembered that Heathcliff would never drop his lady so. She stared up at him with what she thought probably resembled a genuine Cathy smile. "I would never have a child with Edgar, I'm going to divorce him. I don't care what he does to stop me. I want to be with you." Her expression grew seductive as his grew increasingly uncertain. "You're the man I've loved all along. I want to make love with you, right now..."

"What are you saying?" The terror on his face almost made her laugh. "Catherine, you must be delirious..." He turned away, breaking from her embrace.

* * * *

Chakotay panicked. He'd told himself it was all a prank--but if he revealed himself now it would be devastating for her, she had no idea it was _him_. He had watched Janeway pacing wildly when she paused the program earlier; playing the part had obviously gotten her very agitated. She had almost become Catherine Earnshaw for him, the feelings directed at Heathcliff had seemed so real. Perhaps she was tired of the program...or tired of the scene always ending with Cathy falling into a swoon--her hands were pulling his face around. Kiss her, you idiot, he told himself; stay in character. As he did so, Chakotay tried to think how Heathcliff would respond to such a statement from Cathy. Would he tell her that she was mad and flee in horror, or would he do what Chakotay was doing instinctively, pinning her to him, shuffling her toward the bed? Now she could surely feel his arousal. The game had gone too far.

* * * *

So, Janeway thought with dark irony, at least Chakotay couldn't pretend not to be getting into character. In a moment she was going to say, "Enjoying yourself, Commander?" and put an end to the nonsense they were perpetrating upon one another. Except that right now she wasn't ready to stop. She was rather too much in character, herself. She grinned, thinking of all the changes she could have made in the novel--she'd almost used Neelix's image as Ellen, and she'd been tempted to cast Seska as Isabella, the pathetic girl Heathcliff had married in the novel. She pulled up to whisper in Chakotay's ear, letting her lips brush his skin: "I could never imagine how you could have loved that awful woman..."

"Don't speak of her," Chakotay snorted. "And don't torture me with pictures of you and that husband of yours, either." He drew back, looking around and behind her, probably desperate for a way out within the confines of the story. "Why are your ever-present servants not lurking around the corner?"

"I don't know," Janeway retorted impatiently while she pulled him back to her by his shirt front, the buttons popping. They kissed again, and she knew that if she didn't do something right away, she would not stop him--would not stop herself--before they finished what they were about to start. Her fingers lifted to brush his forehead, lingering over his left brow, tracing the lines with a faint smile. A muffled exclamation escaped from his lips. He'd forgotten all about the tattoo when he dressed. Or maybe he hadn't.

"Please," he whispered. "Kathryn." For a dizzying moment she had no idea whether Heathcliff was pleading with Cathy or Chakotay with herself. Then he turned his head to kiss her wrist, and he smiled and added, "Oh, my life," and although they were Heathcliff's words she knew that at that moment he meant it, _him_, Chakotay.

"Commander," she gasped.

"Captain," he replied.

* * * *

Then they were both laughing together, at ease with one another. "We're making a complete mockery of one of the undisputed classics of Earth literature, Chakotay," Janeway wailed.

"Maybe we could make a mockery of Deltan literature next. Then we won't have to worry about the clothes." She slapped him on the arm lightheartedly as they both sat down on the side of the bed, chuckling. For a long moment there was silence. Finally he spoke. "Is one of us supposed to be angry?"

"You are," she nodded. "I've been taking advantage of you in my escapist fantasies."

"So I took advantage of you back. Are we even?" He glanced sideways at Janeway, slightly afraid that when she came to her senses she would initiate courtmartial proceedings against him. "You have a very vivid imagination, Captain. Might I ask why you put me in _this_ program?"

She flinched. "It was supposed to be a very inside joke, after you teased me about my holonovels. I thought I'd get my revenge where no one would know. How did you find out about it?"

"I did some investigative research." He spoke lightly. "I was going to tease you some more about your--romances--until I found out you were in here with _me_."

"Don't tell me you got jealous!"

"I got...curious. B'Elanna taught me how to override holo-sequencing restrictions. There's an interrupt code for private programs, and an engineering overwrite protocol...maybe we should warn the crew." The room suddenly flickered, and the bed seemed to drop out from under them. "What the hell?" Chakotay snapped. "I thought we'd fixed this!"

"Unless we've been forcing the computer to deal with too many conflicting programs at the same time," she said with a trace of a smile. "Either that or we've angered the spirits of Wuthering Heights with our sacrilege. When I brought up the program, would your sequencing have been activated?"

"The overwrite would still be there," he said. "When you end this program, I'll become invisible."

"Like the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff in the story." She was almost wistful. "Good. Then we can both pretend that this was all a holographic delusion."

"I don't want to pretend I only kissed a projection of you." She stared straight ahead, flushing. "Can't we agree that it happened, but between Cathy and Heathcliff? They never had any fun anyway, except maybe in heaven."

"'Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to Earth,'" she quoted. "That was my favorite line in _Wuthering Heights_."

He cocked his head at her, puzzled. "But you chose to live in space."

"That's not what it means. I think that the safe places never made Catherine happy. She wanted novelty and passion and the people"--she looked up at him with an embarrassed smile--"the person she wanted to be with."

"You're more like her than I would have thought." When her forehead knotted in confusion, he continued, "Cathy." She rolled her eyes. "Really. You both are very determined women, you like being in charge, you want your own way, and, usually, you find a way to get it." Her eyebrows rose but she let him continue. "Although there are a few differences. I don't think the Kathryn I know would have settled for Edgar Linton, just because it was known territory."

Janeway sat back abruptly and Chakotay could almost follow her thoughts. He suspected she was thinking of Mark--safely at home, probably still waiting for her return, while here they were on the verge of a forbidden relationship. "Kathryn..." The name made her jump. Chakotay realized that he had upset her. "I meant that as a compliment," he added quickly. "If it's any consolation, I was pretty angry myself--this Heathcliff character is nothing like me."

Janeway laughed aloud, then laughed some more at the expression on his face. "I'm sorry, it's just that you remind me of him more than you realize. You're both driven to succeed at hopeless causes, you're convinced that if you could just get the right people to listen, you could get whatever you wanted done. I admire that in you." When he made a face at her, she leaned toward him, suddenly serious. "I guess this proves that we could pretend to be almost anything and it wouldn't change who we are together. The captain and first officer of this ship. And we both know that. What matters is what we do out there, and what we do in our private time doesn't alter that, does it?"

Chakotay felt a slow wave of heat roll over him as he remembered belatedly that they were sitting together on a bed in the holodeck, with all the privacy protocols engaged. "Are you saying that we could...play out the program?" he asked quietly.

"Do you want to?"

"Do _you_ want to?"

Her hand was moving over his when the colors in the room flickered again. They both sighed aloud, then grinned at each other. "Maybe that's a sign that we should think about this before we do anything we can't...delete. Let's call it a night, see how we feel when we're back to fighting about the Prime Directive."

Chakotay nodded regretfully, stood, then helped Janeway to her feet. "At least before someone notices the power drain." He hesitated. "It's your call, Captain."

They regarded each other a long moment. "Computer--end program."

Alone on the holodeck--or so it must have seemed to her--Janeway adjusted the ribbons in her bodice and smoothed the sleeves of the dress. "You could have given me a hand, Commander," she murmured into the silence. Pausing, she shook her head with a smile, then exited.

After she had gone, Chakotay dug out the uniform he had hidden earlier in the arch. "'Together they would brave Satan and all his legions,'" he muttered to himself as he dressed. "Computer--delete subroutine." Uniformed and ready for duty, he passed into the corridor with a grin.

* * * *

A few hours later, the doors opened again and Tom Paris escorted Harry Kim, the Delaney Sisters, Neelix, and Kes onto the holodeck. "I really want you to see my program," he said proudly. "It's based on a Moroccan cafe, but I've added some interesting..."

"Shhhhhh!" the tiny Ocampa cut him off, pacing with a mystified expression.

"What is it, Kes?" Neelix demanded worriedly.

"There's something here--or someone. A...presence, almost..." She whirled.

"What are you talking about, Kes?" Paris demanded, annoyed at the interruption.

"Ghosts, I think," she whispered. "A man and a woman, haunting this place. Unquiet slumbers..."

"Your imagination," Paris said firmly. "Computer, run program Casablanca Two."

The holodeck ran smoothly all night.


End file.
